Urbnet attached to a unique excavation of the Forum of Julius Cæsar in Rome

06. April 2017

A unique 3-year archaeological excavation project on the Forum of Julius Cæsar in Rome, is scheduled to begin in the autumn of this year (2017). The project is a collaboration between the Danish Institute in Rome and the Roman Municipal Department of Antiquities: the Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali.The project is scientifically associated with Urban Network Evolutions (UrbNet) at Aarhus University. Urbnet is directed by Professor Rubina Raja.

Rubina Raja, the centerleader of Urbnet, expresses herself:“At Urbnet we are amazingly proud to be a central part of this big, new project. The excavations at Caesar’s Forum in Rome hits straight down the Urbnets research agenda about urban development and urban networks. Rome underwent throughout a long period, and especially from about 50 BC. and well into the later Roman period, a new kind of monumentalization in the form of the new imperial forums, which were large public squares initiated by the Roman emperors. Caesar’s Forum is the first of these complexes, and the excavations will offer answers which we have sought for centuries.”

A substantial Danish research team will be involved in the project under the leadership of archaeologist, ph.d Jan Kindberg Jacobsen. The project is funded by the Carlsberg Foundation with a grant of 11 mill. kroner.